Sun Feb 20 16:43:24 2005

At 7 o'clock AM, Day of the Great Gods, 5th of the Month of the Dark Shades
on the Theran calendar Kimberly perished, never to return.

Race:	human
Class:	necromancer
Level:	47
Alignment:	Evil
Ethos:	Neutral
Cabal:	SCION, the Scions of Eternal Night
Age:	53
Hours:	236

Kimberly was a josh at a friend I know irl, it turned into a semi serious character after I landed a few nice lowbie kills. Key pieces to starting a nice set landed in my lap, I decided to see if I could be extremly cocky and build that awesome set and stay alive the whole time. It was then I decided I would only hunt and kill people who had a piece to add to my set. Slowly but surely I leveled and hunted down people who had the odd piece here and there. I was pleased because I started to have a hero set and was not even 30. I took a fair interest in some of the quests that were scattered in different areas and took a interest in Muuloc who had just become an immortal. My playing times were outside of the Peak hour that is a requirement for playing cf, which was a pitty. Luck was with me for about 100 odd hours where I managed to build that perfect set. Then I became cocky and made a mistake, with some bad luck from the RNG I ate half a dozen parting blows ontop of regular hits and a few more for good measure whilst failing repeatidly to flee and died, C wo anyone? hehe.

After that I thought to myself I should see if I can get back on the horse and build a new set. I did and I had a nice set going until I ran into another bad situation. Failed to flee a good dozen times at the giant of battle whilst retrieving and being lashed. Again eating parting blows for each failed flee attempt sped up the dying. I took a firm dislike to the randomness of failed fleeing, also that parting blow works on failed fleeing. But i guess its a feature untill someone abuses it. By that time I had many aspects in the works that I had been looking forward to. The position of loremistress, the extention to the scion cabal, becoming the first follower of Muuloc. At about the 150 hour mark I changed my playing times, and started playing prime time cf wise. Well I must say it was a rude shock to go from no attention to full attention. It was around here that I ran into the pendulum problem. The fortress had about 70% of the pk of 15-20 odd people. I was slowly levleing through retrievals and building armies for retrievals. It was also during this time that the two dozen or so locations that I knew and had discovered for resist wands started to dry up. Without which made life very difficult for me. I had a hand full of ragers eager to fight, another handfull of outlanders and the tribunals when I was wanted. They made life interesting because I seemed to teleport or recall into one of them whilst fighting with the growing numbers of Fortress. It was here and the numbers of marans started to increase, four or five with thise annoying flaming eyes made it twice as hard fighting them. I tried to blind a few of them but seemed to fail endlessly, It was then that I decided that it was not viable to try and fight them unless I had resist preps.

With the weakness of necromancers at 47, there was a large restriction to what resists I could gather. Pickup or easy kill mob were all that were viable of which I knew of six barrier, nine shield and seven aura locations. Trying to maintain a undead army was the biggest waste of time, people in character always tried to encourage me to build one, thinking that was where I was making a mistake. Those who actually helped me quickly learned why it proved useless. After five or sick failed animates I would finally animate a zombie, only to have it disapear within a minute curtesy of any summoner. The few times when there were no summoners around to summon my army I would have some success only to be angered by their lack of movement. Inability to enter dozens of areas because of stupid restrictions of size or hidden exits, crawl directions or verbal transferance. After suffering from this multiple times I discovered that it was pointless trying to keep a army.

Without the ability to hold down a army, without the ability to gather enough resist items to fight I started to think to myself, What am I missing out on. Is there something that necromancers can do at level 47. Is there something that can be done to improve my situation. I pondered for a long period of time, wondering where I was going wrong. If I was going wrong. I decided one day that I would go at it like I used to without preps or an army. I managed to sleep a few people or start fighting with a few but it was then that I noticed the speedy arrival of others eager to fight the lone enemy. Soon as I was dirt kicked by a certain dwarf fortress warrior, whilst I rested to wait for the blind to clear no attack, then once it was clear I noticed that four other fortress members had arrived. Stay to fight? I think not. It was here that I discovered the boredom of teleporting. I would teleport until I landed near a wand location I knew or in a place I didnt know (which I think explored). Occasionaly I would land near a lone person, which I would attack only to quickly discover backup arriving before I could finish the fight.

Was there something I was missing, Could I possibly take on more than 2 people without a army or without preps ? I continued to play 3-6 hours a day, sometimes 10 hours a day each day trying to work out if there was. I tried a few things which I was fairly certain wouldnt work and which normally led to a speedy death. It was during this time that the village started protecting the fortress, fortress started healing/sancing the ragers. The tribunal rushed towards who ever I was fighting, I really did hate manacles. I would spend a hour or two eventually managing to retrieve the sceptre only to have a solo paladin, or perhaps even a group of 7 fortress rock up and rip through it within a minute. This I admit was a spirit breaker, not because I lost the sceptre but because it was the repeat of wasted time. Another hour or two I would start all over again to retrieve the sceptre. Only to get it back and have them take it within five minutes. This happened twice that I can recall. After that I decided that it was pretty much pointless to retrieve whilst there was anyone who would within a minute or five be right back there reraiding.

Scion as a cabal is a interesting puddle of muck. I call it that because it is 100% full of ####. I look at how its structured and then look at its ideals and its unsaid rules and just laugh in puzzlement. It is seeking to bring a prophecy to life, yet shuns all those who try. It seeks information and lore regarding all aspects of power, yet refuses to forcefully take it from others such as Herald. We are talking about a evil cabal here yes?

Scion is a cabal of evil magi, refusing to accept the downside that comes with some of these magi types. Instead insisting that if a scion warrior can do it then a scion magi should be able to. Come again? Scion numbers are so heavily restricted that it barely becomes possible for the cabal to progress anywhere. Battle at its lowest points have had more members than scion has ever had at its peak, excluding the obvious purges in battle.

How is a lone necromancer unable to hold down a army, unable to gain any resist prep items suppose to retrieve the sceptre easily, let alone defend it once it has been retrieved. Let alone continue to do so multiple times to help entertain a hugely stacked side of fortress members who are bored out of their mind.

Kimberly hit old age at 200 odd hours, this was a large turning point for her. It made her think on lichdom straight away. I thought on how I was going to even start to try the lich quest. Impossible to fight big nasty mobs without resist items, which had dried up totaly. Impossible to animate a army without losing it quickly, or losing it as soon as it became summonable. Impossible to achieve any of these three aspects whilst fending off a pure enemy pk of 15-20. As happened on a few occasions, it would only take 1 blackjack and four or five would rock up to ensure that I died.

Was this fun, swiftly and sharply it spiral dived into a big NO!


Sat Jan 15 01:30:15 2005 at level 36 (123 hrs):
Inducted into SCION by Restraal.

Loved your character, especially how you sent every scion app after me to get my cube of force.

Sun Jan 16 04:40:12 2005 at level 40 (135 hrs):
Kimberly advanced to level 40

Yes finally hit level 40, eager to hit 43 for a easy to get barrier item.

Sun Feb 13 16:02:18 2005 at level 47 (236 hrs):
Rage Delete

101 hours after hitting level 40. Old age the huge determining factor in that.

Fri Jan 21 11:13:15 2005 by 'Eshval' at level 40 (160 hrs):
Came up with a viable plan for enlarging the Chasm. Pretty nice work.

Had been in the pipeline for a while, 75 hours pass, nothing more to be added?

Thu Jan 27 22:31:02 2005 by 'Eshval' at level 42 (175 hrs):
In being kind, I would say she does not fail to perform in an average manner.

Kind, you were more than kind. Preps had dried out and I was barely surviving.

Fri Jan 28 23:39:30 2005 by 'Eshval' at level 42 (178 hrs):
Spends a good deal of time not ranking into the hero-ranks and spamming where <a certain thief>. Pity, she does nice written work, and I would like to see her grow.

A good deal of time not ranking into hero ranks, I wasnt going to hit hero ranks till 47, beside human heros who I had allready started to fight with. The 'where kansun' spam was because he stole more than two dozen resist wands from me, which put me back to square one each time he did so.

Who am I to level with ? Solo necromancer, no one in pk or group is even a neutral party. Ragers, outlanders, maraners, fortress members, and the odd imperial tossed in for good measure. The occasional mob death didnt help either.

Sat Jan 29 22:42:37 2005 by 'Eshval' at level 42 (182 hrs):
She attempted a retrieve...they Fortress has pet villagers to help defend. Nice try.

Yeah after a few of these I gave up trying. It became boring the same thing over and over. Even if I did manage to get the sceptre back they would retrieve it within five minutes and I would be no further than I was three hours before.

Sat Feb 5 16:10:58 2005 by 'Eshval' at level 47 (212 hrs):
Kimberly: Worry not about the sceptre for now. There are a few lightwalkers and villagers on whom would take it swiftly were we to regain it. - Meaning I don't wish to defend.

*I had hard enough time trying to solo pk without army without resist preps let alone defend agaisnt people who would be prepared for a fight. People who had up until then and continued to do so long after brought as many as they could gather to the fight. I would have loved to have been able to toss up barrier/shield/aura and charge on in to hurl a few spells. But again, dried up resists ment that I couldnt even stick it out for a round.

**NB: the following immortal comment all occour within a hour, Lets take a close look at the situation.

Thu Feb 10 22:07:54 2005 by 'Qaledus' at level 47 (232 hrs):
Stop talking about defending and defend. And be evil!

Were you the immortal that took away xp for being to nice? Ha. Regarding defending, read above*.

Thu Feb 10 23:35:46 2005 by 'Valguarnera' at level 47 (232 hrs):
Example from earlier today: Unthurok (uncaballed warrior) raids Scion solo. Kimberly stands around asking questions until Unthurok finishes killing the Archmage, resting twice for hp in between. Sad.

What was I doing at the time, was I a ghost, was I nakid, who else was raiding with the warrior or lurking in the shadows? Can you remember, id be interested to know if you could. I always showed up for a solo fight if I could last more than a round.

Fri Feb 11 21:06:52 2005 by 'Innis' at level 47 (232 hrs):
Would be more efficient if she didn't stand at the pit spamming to get items - got her killed...seldom uses the 'where' command.

Was pit sitting because of what was going to arrive at the pit :), I used where very often. Very very often, eshval commented on that.

Fri Feb 11 21:10:22 2005 by 'Innis' at level 47 (232 hrs):
Cudos for attacking Cyver at the pit, when he demanded his items. Kimberly> You say 'Oh come now, surely you dont take me for a fool'

The treasures arrived at the pit. Saved me having to waste more time getting such shinies. Went just as fast as they came, gang of four after being black jacked.


After reading these immortal comments about defending, can I get a honest reply as to what I was missing. I had to be missing something for you to all comment on my inability to defend with a necromancer or solo retrieve against a dozen enemies, no sarcasium. I mean necromancers damage output isnt huge, without a full army or ABS spare what can they really do.

Also can whoever the immortal was that was using the dark healer please extrapolate on that situation, I had been on for 6 hours straight and somehow I was wussing out because they took the sceptre for what, the third time that day and I had decided to log out?



Exp 376300 To Level 20000 Sphere Time/Fate
Age old, 53 years old (236 hours)
Hit Points 611 Mana 813 Movement 546

Turning old age at 200 odd hours was a huge letdown.




Experience from Cabal raiding 9050
Experience from Skill improvements 15353
Experience from Exploration 3650
Experience from Quests 24500
Experience from Commerce 3875

How much exp is needed to get usefull skills in commerce?


# of logins with their cabal item 14
# of logins without their cabal item 20
# of logouts with their cabal item 16
# of logouts without their cabal item 12
# of times they lost their cabal item 33
# of times they retrieved their cabal item 14
# of times they took another cabal item 4

Loged in 20 times without the item, loged out 12 times without cabal item, Often being the lone person on. Retrieved 14 times before I eventually gave up on retrieving.


On to farewells:

Scion: Well the cabal has it rough, two main enemies before you add class or race. Four if your a necromancer and five if you add a criminal flag ontop of that. I admire you all, even giliian who might have thought that I had it in for you. Playing in scion is like playing a rager but with magic.
Hylondin, awesome.
Granaak, similarly balls to the wall awesome.
Restraal, You knew how I felt in game, nice going.
Chancellor, I really do think you should be able to talk/reply when in form. So much you missed out on.
Others of scion, there were a few of you however just a few, not enough. Scion needs a firm playerbase but cf itself seems to suffer that problem itself.

Battle: I had a few fights with some of you, some got a bit more attention than normal. Mainly because of interfearance during retrievals and pks. All comments directed at any villagers in game about respect between your fellow villager was all IC and aimed at trying to stir up the pot.

Empire: I gave you all a get out of jail free card, unless you attacked me directly or the chasm. Times were tough enough that we didnt need to add each other to the hitlist.

Outlander: I had brokered truce with many of you, which held untill you got caught out by snooping immortals. Drahke, we had a few good fights. Tjok dam those unexpected ambushes whilst regearing.

Tribunal: Corrupt, abusive of powers, lack of ability to act even when forwarned about laws being broken. I really started to dislike this cabal. Being jacked and ganked by four people infront of a tribunal with guards, wasnt impressive. Especially since they were fortress memebers. A certain elf studying the fourth dimension was a blast to rp with. I really did miss that after I turned all angry at tribunals. Being wanted outside of towns is now more a pain in the but than I had originally thought.

Fortress: Well When I was young it was fun, Heros were doing their own fighting and so were the mid ranks. Fortress numbers started to swell and sweel and sweel some more. Seeing a minimum of 10 on for roughly 20 hours a day was gross to say the least. There were a good four or five times when I fought people outside the cabal, sanc/haste/voker shields on a low level warrior is nasty. Especially when you kept cleansing them. Your numbers reminded me of 1st age cabal raids which went on for hours and hours. Pitty that there was no opposing cabal with equal numbers. Jez, Your rp puzzled me at first, but then took a sharp turn for the better nearing the end. Sydrian, dam pincer combined with fiery eyes was just to much for a necromancer who couldnt hold onto resist wands. Which moves me to the creepy crawly people of the fortress or assicated with. Kansun, You alone were my biggest bane, What wands I did have swiftly were taken. Iramath, I am unsure but I thought I felt you easy the hunting of me after that incident where I fought you. Well honestly it was 99.9% your favor.I fled and teleported hit another pker, teleported and landing back on you. They were fast paced times, every turn city travel passage had a enemy. The rest of you who go unmentioned , sorry, but I didnt deal enough with you in game to hold a firm memory.


A few suggestions:

Put in a single character per player rule.
Put in cabal number restrictions.
Put in a vuln on storm giants.

Limited resist wands have a rot flag for logging out like keys. This could ensure that those who are playing can access them. Or adjust the rot flag so that only those with wand skill can keep them. This would remove store characters holding a dozen wands. Which i have seen a few times.

Necromancers:

Give necromancers a resistance to disease, or atleast immunity to their own crimson, mummies plague.

Spells:

Damage:
Return acid blast to necromancers at level 47 ? Many creatures are immune malediction and negative making a necromancer unable to do anything. Vampiric is costly low damage and a two round spell. Chill touch is a level 1 spell that is more usefull in stacking neg str than dealing damage.
It often outdamages vampiric however. Two evises beats a mangle.

Maledictive:
Most of these spells have a long cooldown period, are very costly and have a high failure rate. Knowing that I can cast only four crimsons or six at most in a tick is frustrating. Failing forget or decay seven or eight times is a huge burn on mana. Casting one whilst actually fighting that doesnt land normally ends with you dead at the end of the fight. 3 rounds for a warrior is a long cooldown, 3 rounds for a mage who is a meat shield isnt viable.

Protective:

Wraithform, giant resistance pass door and immunity to bash at 36. All other mage types get a form of bash protection a form of damage reduction and most get the ability to pass door. Wraithform however only protects against physical damage. More specifically slash pierece bash. It provides no protection against any other damage type. Unlite stoneskin which works against all damage types. Perhaps the damage reduction of wraithform could just be a solid % across the board?

Armor of living bone, a weird spell some say it is damage reduction others say it isnt. After 500 hours of looking at this spell I am still uncertain. Its not noticable enough and its small enough that randomness could account for its lack. Perhaps make it more than a painfull way to get 20ac?

Undead Army:
Remove tick timer on failed animate dead. The spell fails often, very often.
Remove the distending timer on lesser & greater golem. The timer at spectre is insanely long.
Enable embalmed body parts to not decay. Few people kill 15-20 players every 20 ticks. Which is how many you would need to kill to get lucky enough to get the right body parts and to be able to animate a golem with them.
Make zombies immune to summon if they are with their necromancer.
Enable zombies to follow their creator through crawl spaces, hidden walls, illusionary walls, verbal transferance rooms, and size restricted rooms.
I would suggest giving necromancers a undead army summon spell, but lich's have that as a phylac.

Give zombies and ghouls and golems more random damage types. Or allow specifcations whilst animating. To many creatures are immune crush, negative, which leaves a necromancer with nothing to kill them with.

All that being said. Many thanks to the immortals who explained many aspects that I didnt understand, Muuloc for being more than patient with me, and the players who were interested in a good fight. To all the others, good luck and remember that this is a game. Have fun!

Necros are a powerful class, even when limited to lvl 47.

Maybe your problems were down to the enemies you were facing, but necros are a powerful class as it is.

Storms are plenty easy enough for a necro to kill (barring others interfering). They don't really need a vuln that I can see. I have always found them quite weak relative to necros, and I think (though I'm not sure) that it is down to having crappy mental-related stats.

Forget is not really a spell to spam in combat, or at last, not without the colossal mana cost. Personally I found it had a high degree of success on sleeping enemies. Speaking of which, I learnt that whilst I enjoyed putting every maladiction under the sun on enemies, sometimes you had to just slap on the bare minimum in order to kill them before the cavalry arrived. That's also when pwk can be worth a shot.

Overall, I found that with an uncaballed necro, there was no one that could kill me through aura, shield, wraithform (protection if they were good), if I failed a sleep. That, to me, says that barrier wasn't totally essential, though I agree I found many fights that even with barrier I just couldn't land a single spell.

Regarding zombies, there are a number of ways to raise an undead army without them being summoned. Some relate to where you raise them from (e.g. a no summon area can help) and some relate to where you put them if you aren't going to use them (e.g. I would walk into my guild and then recall out). But there are other ways as well.

I agree with you on armor of living bone. It says it is dam redux, but I never noticed any redux.

I disagree on almost every enhancement you've suggested for necros though. The class is a powerful one, and doesn't need to be made any stronger.

Also, you are not thinking outside of the box re bodyparts. You don't have to kill the people yourself. You have gravesight to spot where recently killed bodyparts are. Also, just consider it a perk that you can do whenever you do slice off an enemy's parts. I have always found it easy enough to get bodyparts for my golems.

Animate dead is meant to fail a lot. Otherwise most necros would have full zombie armies, and they are disgustingly powerful like that. There are logs of a necro of mine going through two paladins and two vokers with no protections, mainly due to a zombie army. Really, what balances the zombie army (apart from warriors that can drive you away from them) is that people can avoid you on the few occasions you have them. That said, I would like it if zombies had "uniqueness" so that if your "zombie of fred" goes missing, you can summon "zombie of fred" instead of randomly trying zombies without success.

A 47 necromancer, played right, should be a murderous beast cutting a swath of death through everything. Barring mummy/lich, I'm not sure there's a single thing in the hero range with more killing power.

Scarabaeus once said to me something to the effect that necromancers were a very finesse class and, that once you had learned to play them right, nearly everything else in the game comparitively seemed to have the elegance of clubbing a man to death with a rock. I tend to think he's right.

"A 47 necromancer, played right, should be a murderous beast cutting a swath of death through everything. Barring mummy/lich, I'm not sure there's a single thing in the hero range with more killing power."

Agreed. In solo, one on one fights, a necro to me is the deadliest killer in the game, even at 47. Once you have someone slept, they should be dead. This is barring them calling in help over cb or grouptell or AIM. But we all know that never happens and CF is only about 1v1 fights.

Unless you are summoned into a locked room or similar, there is zero reason to die to a solo necro.

Hope your teleportation potion saves you when you are spelled up the #### and teleport to god knows where with scourge, poison, plague for 80 hours all stacked. Necromancers are tough as nails solo and prepped against another solo foe. We all know how much solo fights happen at hero, right?

If he fails to cast on you, or manages only slowly.

because of the sleep timer or lack of mana. Basically, if a rescue doesn't come, they'll be spelled up.

The one time I can think of is when I slept Kwalin. A rescue did come for him, but I'd run out of mana without landing any spells on him besides the sleep. Whether I'd have managed to fully spell him up in the 3 hours I'd get after a short rest, I don't know. I assume not.

Basically, if you are slept, and the necro is uninterupted, it is very rare not to be spelled up fully.

Also, my own necros used things like lagging wands to wake people with so that the zombie army could go to town on them before they teleported.

With a svs of at least -55. I had a healer with -80 svs once, he was harmless, but necros left me alone regardless.

Keep in mind I've never played a necro, but I don't think zombies should be summonable. At the very least, not summonable by people out of pk. Those hero goodie summoners who get bored and decide to make the lvl 30 necro's life miserable are too numerable for this to seem fair to me for the time involved to raise an army. You can't summon special guards, you can't summon conjuror servitors, why should you be able to summon necro pets?

Just for the hell of it, I think maybe a 'bind-zombie' type spell (aura of dread? polluted essence? rot of the grave?) that gives necros the ability to deny summoning of their servitors (that maybe also prevents them from wording, but not teleporting) would be a good addition to the game.

>Keep in mind I've never played a necro, but I don't think
>zombies should be summonable. At the very least, not
>summonable by people out of pk. Those hero goodie summoners
>who get bored and decide to make the lvl 30 necro's life
>miserable are too numerable for this to seem fair to me for
>the time involved to raise an army. You can't summon special
>guards, you can't summon conjuror servitors, why should you be
>able to summon necro pets?

No guard type mobs can be summoned, it's not just special guards. Conjurer pets would just pop right back to their owner, so there's not much point in being able to summon them either. Once the necros start getting more powerful servants the problem pretty much cures itself just by the mobs being near impossible to summon. Consider it paying dues.


>Just for the hell of it, I think maybe a 'bind-zombie' type
>spell (aura of dread? polluted essence? rot of the grave?)
>that gives necros the ability to deny summoning of their
>servitors (that maybe also prevents them from wording, but not
>teleporting) would be a good addition to the game.

The whole "zombie summoning" issue doesn't really need extra spells, these things are covered if a necro makes it to lich. Consider it extra incentive to grab for that golden ring. (No not THAT golden ring, a metaphorical golden ring)

nt

Iramath, I am unsure but I thought I felt you easy the hunting of me after that incident where I fought you.

I did ease up on you. The character justified it on the grounds that Kimberly was little to no threat with so many Forty-folks running around, but I came up with that because I felt your pain. When I was Mekantos that was pretty how most of the character's life was (over 400 hours worth). Even Mek had it better than a necromancer, I think, and so I just didn't really feel great about trying to run you down. I mean, sure, if you were going to teleport right into the area with me, I was going to come after you, but that's about it.

You draw some very interesting comparisons and some of your suggested improvements to the class piqued my curiosity. The thing is that no-one on the Immortal staff would ever consider taking any of your advice for fear of being ridiculed, no matter how good your advice is.

As for level 47 necromancers being powerful, that is a crock. I am fairly sure I know necromancers better than most. They are horribly weak at level 47 compared to nearly any hero class. To a maran, killing a necromancer is like swatting flies and anyone arguing against this is completely ignorant.

As for:

'Scarabaeus once said to me something to the effect that necromancers were a very finesse class and, that once you had learned to play them right, nearly everything else in the game comparitively seemed to have the elegance of clubbing a man to death with a rock. I tend to think he's right.'

Well we all know how much PK'ing Istendil did at level 47 as a human. None. I know because I would always try and find the bastard to attack him. He wouldn't show. When I did find him, he'd run. Unless Nepenthe has spent any considerable amount of time recently as a level 47 necromancer, then he should not be so willing to disregard what other people (who actually know the class as it is today) say. And Scarabaeus? We all saw how useless Golmagus was, and he was a lich! Imagine how laughable he'd have been as a level 47 necro. In any case, the reason playing a necromancer takes such finesse is because they are so damn weak. It's ridiculous. Necromancers go from being useless until 23, to overpowered until level 36ish and then just get worse and worse and worse until level 47 at which point they are completely crap and no fun to play.

Just my 2 cents.

I expect a bunch of players who only play Fort characters to disagree but again that will stem from their ignorance. Anyone who seriously thinks necromancers are overpowered or even balanced at 47 is flat out wrong.

The thing is that no-one on the Immortal staff would ever consider taking any of your advice for fear of being ridiculed, no matter how good your advice is.

Conversely, other members of Team SMUG will pop up to defend each other no matter how ridiculous the post is.

Anyone who seriously thinks necromancers are overpowered or even balanced at 47 is flat out wrong.

I can't remember seeing a Spectre with a losing PK record, ever. Part of that is self-selection (inexperienced players don't hit Spectre), but a lot of it is because necromancers flat-out win a ton of fights.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

"Conversely, other members of Team SMUG will pop up to defend each other no matter how ridiculous the post is."

Conversely the immortal staff will slam the hell out of players opinions that they dislike, no matter how constructive the post was. SMUG for example.

"I can't remember seeing a Spectre with a losing PK record, ever. Part of that is self-selection (inexperienced players don't hit Spectre), but a lot of it is because necromancers flat-out win a ton of fights."

How many of those spectres stuck at 47 and racked up huge kill/death ratios? Ill agree necromancers are a solid class but even if I oocly am not a fan of the SMUGs, doesn't mean they can't have good ideas. Lastly Ill point out that if necromancers are so ungodly bad ass at 47 why the hell do you beef them up with three possible quest classes beyond the standard spectre?

I think I was overly aggressive in my first post, so for that I apologise.

> Conversely, other members of Team SMUG will pop up to defend each other no matter how ridiculous the post is.

You'll have to take my word on this though in that I would be and usually am one of the first to tell Hastur via a forum or via a direct conversation that he is full of it. I am not so patriotic and loyal as to think that 95% of what he says not an outright fabrication.

> I can't remember seeing a Spectre with a losing PK record, ever. Part of that is self-selection (inexperienced players don't hit Spectre), but a lot of it is because necromancers flat-out win a ton of fights.

There are two specific reasons for this. One you mention; only the good players generally make Sceptre in the first place. The second is that by the time they make spectre they have about a 90%+ PK ratio due to necromancers being so powerful in the late 20's/early to mid 30's. Doesn't change the fact (at least in my mind) that necromancers are severely underpowered at level 47.

I have fond memories of level 47 master necros completly dominating. However, times have changed, wand system decreases the number of fights you get per login! And scion or empire just cant compare to the power and fun of Masters (bless Twist for years of fun).

I agree with Sihesar on the most part, however, I feel he has exggerated a little. This is because for Sihesar, anything less than killing the entire who pk list per login is a failure :)

I would classify necros in the following:

1-15 (almost useless)
16-26 (completly useless)
27-41 (extremely tough, many kills)
42-47 (occasional kills only)

I've played more spectres than all my fortress characters put together, all without ooc groups to help them rank. One spectre died in the mummy quest and another had located his last item when I deleted him. I've had scion, uncaballed, and trib spectres, with only scarab and empire that I haven't tried. There isn't a single necro spell (apart from armor of living bone) that I didn't consider very useful.

They are powerful. Sure, maran are very tough and in my experience will generally outmatch a necro who doesn't have an army, but that's because they are maran. (That said, I bested a maran assassin even when tiger clawed, by slapping up a wall of flesh before he jumped me and then just using wands on him. That's because wall of flesh is powerful if used right (I've also died because I used it wrong), yet so many necros don't use it unless raising undead.) Wtf would be the point of the maran cabal if their powers didn't spell serious danger for at least some evil guys (by which I am thinking of those that trigger eyes of flame, although most of them pissed my felar thug thief off too with maran weapons). Yes, Maran were tough as hell for a necro. A few ragers were tough. Most others were not. And I can draw at least some comparison to Kimberly because my last necro was also wanted for almost his entire life and was dealing with 2 healers gating to him, several air offense forms attempting fly-to-murders, and worst of all, a conjie that kept tessing to him with archangels.

I think the only class I repeatedly struggled against with my necros was transmuters, but that's mainly because I kept getting neuro'd by heroes when I had no undead with me.

The reason I wanted to lich/mummy was, mechanics wise, so that I could have those last four levels, more than any new powers, but I don't by any means think necros are weak without them.

Look at the necro pk stats on Dio's. They are consistently good relative to other classes, and I don't agree that that's because they are played by more skilled players.

"Look at the necro pk stats on Dio's. They are consistently good relative to other classes, and I don't agree that that's because they are played by more skilled players."

While I have always felt you a solid player Daurwyn, and your chars very tough, they were in no way uber-deathful and racking up huge kill totals. Rather, I think you play a lot like me, i.e. don't die long enough and the kills will come. I mean you had 25 pks with Baendra in 311 Hours. Thats hardly deathful. Thats not meant as a slam, but evidence to refute your claim of necro's deathfullnes. However the majority of people racking up high pk ratios with necros are usually deleting well before level 47, so that might contribute to their high ratio on DIO's. You however got 23 pks at 47 so that means if nothing else you were actually pkilling at hero rather then at the necro niche spot of 36.

But you have to consider that my chars do not tend to actively hunt without an rp reason. As in, they don't kill every target of opportunity.

If I can get 23 at hero (I didn't even know it was that many) without really trying, I think I could do better if I rolled up a necro whose purpose was to pk.

I never claimed to be a pk butcher. But, when I do choose to pk someone, it enables me to judge how effective a class is at it. Paladins, for me, were ineffective (admittedly before I learnt to use summon traps as I did with Sossaphrin) at sealing kills, since I didn't gang. Necros, for me, are effective at sealing kills and very very far from fragile. They almost always live long enough to break off a bad fight.

>Well we all know how much PK'ing Istendil did at level 47 as a
>human. None. I know because I would always try and find the
>bastard to attack him. He wouldn't show. When I did find
>him, he'd run.

I can't decide if you're lying, remembering in a way that suits you, or just on crack.

Istendil logged somewhere between 50-100 kills and 0 deaths at 47, the vast majority of them solo. Although, a lot has changed since then. There are a lot of tricks and things he pulled that you can't now, and there are a lot of tricks you can pull now and couldn't then.

Side note: This kind of argument is why I stopped telling ya'll who I play.

Thu Feb 10 23:35:46 2005 by 'Valguarnera' at level 47 (232 hrs):
Example from earlier today: Unthurok (uncaballed warrior) raids Scion solo. Kimberly stands around asking questions until Unthurok finishes killing the Archmage, resting twice for hp in between. Sad.

What was I doing at the time, was I a ghost, was I nakid, who else was raiding with the warrior or lurking in the shadows? Can you remember, id be interested to know if you could. I always showed up for a solo fight if I could last more than a round.

Fully geared, one zombie, ghoul. Sitting at the entrance to the Shadow Grove- not the closest spot, but a straight run on all road terrain is available, and your range wasn't bad. You had a lower-level Scion inside the cabal who told you the raider was alone, although not someone who could see hidden. Neither of you named a thief/assassin specifically, so there didn't seem to be a specific fear based on a recent sighting in play.

Your commands came down to "where, who pk, cb" many times. You occasionally looked in your container checking on who knows what. I made a note because your character made delusional claims over cb on a regular basis, and I wasn't sure if it was an undocumented role feature, or a player issue.

An uncaballed warrior raiding the Archmage with no help takes quite a bit of time. You eventually fought him in Hamsah after the Sceptre was lost, getting a whip spec to do the majority of the work for you. This kind of over-safety wasn't a rare event with the character, which is why various Scion NPCs started getting on your case about it.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

Opinions and observations:

Kimberly started out well and received several gifts from other players to help her 'set' of nice clothes get off the ground. I agree, you landed some kills and in general showed an average competence as a necro. As you aged, you relied more on social skills and interaction and would often engage in verbal sparring matches with opponents and general conversations with allies. When you felt an incident was unfair, you would often pray about it.

I probably watched you more than any other immortal, and I generally keep watch on all Scions when I am not area writing, policing, or performing a myriad of other tasks. I have been where you were, having had my share of spectres. In watching you build an army, I often wondered, why you never used 'embalm' in the preparation to create your undead...I use the word 'never' because in the dozen or so times I watch you create, you 'never' did.

I do realize the thief plagued you through theft, and because of such worry, you would spam his name. In watching you, it came to mind that if I were you, I would be using the 'where' command more frequently. There were times you would not even look about for 5 or more minutes, because you were engrossed in some conversation. That is a sure way to court death.

Lastly, the Scion library concept was viable, and I recognize you did substantial work towards seeing its inception. In CF, area rewrites, updates or modifications do not happen over night, often not even in the lifetime of a character...it isn't that easy. You deleted with a ton of hours and life remaining, that was your choice. Plenty of time for the Becoming.

I could use a chuckle.